Warren Is Surprised Brown Supports 'Extremist' Bill

BOSTON — Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren made the rounds on local television and radio news programs on Feb. 16. It was the first time she’s done any long-form local interviews since announcing her candidacy last September.

On "Greater Boston," Warren said the compromise President Barack Obama has made with religious institutions over health care coverage for contraceptive services is the perfect solution. So when Sen. Scott Brown said earlier this week that her position oppresses Catholics, Warren seemed genuinely puzzled. "That comment is just so over the top," she said.

She, however, had her own criticism for Brown, about a new bill he's co-sponsoring — "aggressively pushing," she said —that would allow institutions to deny other types of health care coverage on moral grounds.

"You might decide [to oppose] people with children or single parents with children. You don’t like the lifestyle of a single mom raising her kids, so you just cut them out of health care coverage," she said.

Warren added that while she wasn't not surprised some extremists might propose a bill like that, she couldn't understand why Brown would be on board.

"I am surprised is that Scott Brown would say, 'I want to be a co-author on that' and is out there trying to raise money off his supporters for a bill like that," she said.

Speaking of surprises, when host Emily Rooney asked Warren whether she knew Joseph Kennedy III, who just announced for the 4th Congressional district, she said that not only did she know him — he was once her student.